
Webmin, a popular web-based system administration tool used to manage Unix-like servers and various services with approximately 1,000,000 yearly installations worldwide, has been found to contain a critical security vulnerability. This flaw could allow remote attackers to escalate their privileges and gain significant control over affected systems.
The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-2774, is a CRLF Injection Privilege Escalation Vulnerability with a CVSS score of 8.8, indicating its high severity. The core issue lies within Webmin’s handling of CGI requests. The vulnerability stems from the “lack of proper neutralization of CRLF sequences.” This lack of proper handling allows an attacker to inject Carriage Return and Line Feed characters into specific requests, manipulating the server’s response.Successful exploitation of this vulnerability enables an attacker to escalate privileges and “execute arbitrary code in the context of root.” This means an attacker could gain the highest level of control over the server, potentially leading to data breaches, system compromise, and other malicious activities.
The impact of this vulnerability is severe. Given Webmin’s widespread use in managing critical server functions, a successful exploit could allow attackers to:
- Gain full control of the server.
- Modify system configurations.
- Install malware.
- Access sensitive data.
- Disrupt services.
The vulnerability has been addressed in Webmin version 2.302. Users are strongly advised to update to this version as soon as possible to mitigate the risk of exploitation.
All users of Webmin are urged to:
- Immediately update to Webmin version 2.302.
- Review system logs for any suspicious activity.
- Implement strong security practices, including principle of least privilege and network segmentation.
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- CVE-2024-12828 (CVSS 9.9): Webmin Vulnerability Leaves a Million Servers Exposed to RCE
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